Another long pause, and I guess it’s the least I deserve. Just when I think that she doesn’t want to see me at all, that I should just leave, she opens the door.
As I walk in, she backs away like a fragile cat, watches me as I put the plate on the table. Her hair is slightly wild and she’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans.
“Thought you might be hungry.” I take a few paces back.
Mia, with a certain caution in her face, approaches the table, assessing the cuts of porchetta and pancetta, the bread and cheese. I guess the time locked in one space has started to get to her, or that her hunger finally got the better of her because when she sits down, she immediately starts chomping on the food.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, “for keeping you locked in here. It might be hard for you to understand, but it was done for your own good with everything going on lately.”
She lifts her head, scoffs at me in a notable way that hints that something’s changed within her.
“Your father’s dead?”
“Yeah,” I nod my head, “he’s gone.”
Mia continues eating, tearing into the bread, and bites the cheese.
“Look, this whole thing that happened between us, it wasn’t what I expected, and it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t follow that feeling in my gut. And it’s the only way I can rationalize my actions, by telling myself to trust my gut.”
“So your gut told you to lock me in this room?” She turns to me, her eyes changing. “Did it also tell you to kill my father?”
“What?”
She stands up, her entire demeanor transforming in front of me. “Where is he? Tell me where he is, you piece of shit!”
Fuck, where this should be a point in our conversation that has me worried, I’m becoming increasingly impressed by her strength. There’s a growing hardness in her that I understand and can also relate to.
“Your father—” I say with a will to tell her everything, to clear the air of all my sins, and I want to, but in an instant everything changes.
A succession of cracking sounds, louder than you can ever imagine, rings through the house. Crack! Crack! Gunfire is going off, and for a moment I think it’s just my brother shooting into the sky, but the screams that follow certify my fears.
Mia stands from the table. “What’s that?”
I put her body behind mine and listen, facing the door. Crack! Crack! More shots. “Get down!” I tell her and run to the window to see at least a dozen men coming to the house, firing in all directions.
Mia’s still standing, staring in shock. Fuck! I sprint over to her, pull her down onto the floor and cover her body with mine. After everything, there’s no way I’m going to let her be taken from me. I listen carefully and reach my hand around to touch the gun in the back of my belt. Fucking assholes, rat scumbags, there’s no honor anymore, even my worst enemies I wouldn’t attack on a day of mourning. Fucking animals. “Stay down, we’re being attacked.”
Suddenly the windows smash, and glass shatters around us. Mia screams and grabs onto me, shaking like a leaf. I hold her down, the primal man in me willing to die to protect her. But, I have to do something. This is my house now, and in addition to my Mia, I have to save everyone else too. I pull her over to the bathroom. “Mia, get inside and promise me you’ll stay here. Stay low! I’ll come back for you.”
I pull the pistol out from the back of my pants, run out into the hall, looking back one more time, and just hope with everything in me that she does what I say.